of the region is covered by the 17-million
acre Tongass National Forest. Under the
Alaska National Interest Lands Conserva
tion Act of 1980, Congress ordered the U. S.
Forest Service to offer at least 4.5 billion
board feet of Tongass timber for commercial
logging every decade.
Japan is an eager market for Southeast's
timber. Alaska Lumber and Pulp's big pulp
mill in Sitka is Japanese owned, and most of
the timber cut in the region heads west, not
south. Environmentalists and others worry
that all that cutting will destroy critical
Alaska brown bear and black-tailed deer
habitat. Fishermen are concerned about
what it will do to island streams where pink,
chum, and coho salmon lay their eggs. Ironi
cally, this land of seemingly endless forest
doesn't have enough to go around.
STATE BEAR BIOLOGIST John
Schoen flew me over Admiralty Island
for a look. Below our slow-speed Helio
Courier, unnamed creeks braided their
way out of the forest canopy and across lush
grassy flats. Brown bears squatted on alpine